Wednesday, July 1, 2009

The labor group Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) reiterated its call for a “workers bailout” in the face of the impending closure of the Taguig-based Triumph garments factory and its subsidiary Star Performance on August 28, and Cebu-based Celestica electronics firm on August 31. Triumph and Star Performance are both German-owned with 1600 workers while Celestica is a Canadian-owned factory producing various electronics products in the Mactan Export Processing Zone (MEPZ) in Lapu-Lapu City with 900 employees.

“We call on the government to backtrack from charter revision and instead focus on the economic recession. The closure of Triumph, Star Performance and Celestica and the layoff of a total of more than 2,500 workers belie the claim of DOLE about a rebound in the garments and electronics industry. It is not a slow growth but a sluggish decline that best describes the economy. Unemployment insurance and a bailout of the workers and the poor will put money in the hands of the consumers and revive domestic demand and thus the local economy,” argued Renato Magtubo, PM chairperson.

PM has been pushing for a bailout package for workers in the light of continuous hemorrhage in jobs in export firms. The bailout includes an unemployment subsidy for displaced workers; tax refund for all wage earners; expansion and reform of the public employment program; extension of health care coverage for displaced workers; and moratorium on demolitions and evictions.

PM contends that the economy is practically in recession and thus urgent action must be taken. “Government cannot keep on whistling in the dark and being in denial about the recession. Tens of thousands have lost their jobs and many remain without work. An economic revival can only come about through a policy reversal and paradigm shift in the national development model. The policies of liberalization, deregulation and privatization must be stopped. The local economy must be developed by strengthening industry and modernizing agriculture based on agrarian reform,” insisted Magtubo.

Magtubo furthered that “In the immediate period, the workers of Triumph, Star Performance and Celestica may be able to live off their separation pay. But if they cannot find another job in the next six months then their living standards will suffer in the medium to long-term period. Workers are being made to pay the price of a crisis that is not of their own making.”

“These foreign-owned multinational companies are throwing their Filipino workers like dirty rags after benefiting from their labor all these years,” argued Magtubo.

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Our Vision

Our dream is a world that gives due importance to the role of the working class and respects the dignity of labor. A social order where the working men and women of the world live together in peace, harmony and progress.Our aspirations lie in the emancipation of labor. A government that is truly of the workers, by the workers and for the workers.

Our hopes rest in a future where social progress thrives not for the benefit of a few people but for the development and richness of the entire humankind. A society that is free from the chains of wage slavery and where oppression does not exist.

Our Mission

Forge the unity of the workers into an independent working class party to organize them as a potent political force in social transformation towards the advancement and protection of labor from the scourge of globalization, establishment of a genuine workers’ government and the emancipation of the working class from capitalist exploitation and wage slavery.

Workers Unite!

The working class is the most important class in society. But, labor will only be a force to reckon with at a time when labor assumes the responsibility of leading the struggle to a decent living - free from exploitation of the propertied elite.

The time has come to rally every underprivileged sector of the society, to take the bull by the head and confront the issues of today. The working class must take an active role in every political exercise presented. The backbone of the independent party must be comprised of the working class with the other marginalized sectors in solidarity.

We must organize politically.

This is our own challenge and we must vow not to shirk from it.

Our future is in our hands, in our unity, in our struggle, in our party.